People are tired of getting the catalytic converters stolen from their cars; tired of having to ask an employee to unlock a case every time you want to buy something because shoplifting has gotten so bad; tired of road rage and rising murder rates and people acting crazy on planes.
Who sympathizes with someone who steals designer handbags? You can't eat a designer handbag.
Who sympathizes with someone who engages in petty crime instead of getting a proper job when unemployment is so low that anyone who wants a job can have a job?
Who sympathizes with people like the subway shooter?
As far as I'm concerned, anyone who commits a violent crime should be locked up for life. Get the garbage out of society.
I don't go as far as you do about locking them all up for life, but I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said before that. The kind of surge in crime we are seeing is not at all the kind of petty crime you see from people desperate to find the next meal for themselves and their kids. And sympathy is made even thinner by the fact that, as you said, anyone with a pulse can very easily get a job right now. There may have been a time and place for the folks who talk about how criminals are the real victims and are forced into crime by structural factors outside of their control, but now sure as hell ain't that time.
